GRGR(4) Whappo

[Keith Woodward]

At 09:58 PM 6/27/99 +0100, JL wrote:
>That name sounds like some character in Plato's
>Dialogues, but as usual my knowledge is too shallow 
>to make anything of it.  I remember something of 
>the concept of 'Forms' as defining characteristics; 
>and that Wittgenstein took the idea further (???).
>Does the Crouchfield idea of One-ness follow from 
>this?  A-and if not, whence?
>Direct me to the archives if this has been covered.

I don't recall a character named Whappo in Plato (but the thought of it has
caused a considerable amount of laughter round the house this afternoon).
However: the notion of, er, one-of-everything is fairly an accord with
Plato's world of forms.  The particular 'forms' that are present in
Slothrop's dream don't glom with Plato's ordering because they don't
centralize essential properties as the defining singular characteristic, but
it nonetheless remains, in a sense, a world of forms.  

In one sense or another, it seems to focus in on categorization rather than
individuation, and I wonder how much, from that POV, all of the figures in
that portion of the dream are representative of the ideas of things (much as
some dream theory connects images symbolically) and if this is a
behavioristic approach to understanding/knowledge.

Keith W